by Lexie Ray
I gulped and forced my eyes to meet hers, trying to convince myself that she wasn’t totally nude in front of me, that everything was normal.
We stared at each other for a few long moments, as if each of us was waiting on the other to make a move, and then Peyton smirked.
“What?” I asked, my voice sounding strange to my ears. “What’s funny?”
“You’re funny,” she said. “It’s like you’ve never seen a naked woman before.”
“That’s not true. I’ve seen plenty of naked women —”
“In person?”
I tried not to snap at her, tried to hold back on how badly that offended me. Just because I was the hardest worker out of all of my brothers didn’t mean that I never had time for company with the fairer sex. I wasn’t a virgin. I just didn’t have that many partners in my past. I hadn’t cared to. I had other pursuits on my mind — namely, the success of the ranch and the following of my dreams.
“I’m only teasing,” she said, doing a cute little pose that did absolutely nothing to relieve my anxiety. “What can I do to help you relax? I have a couple of things in mind. Do you have any suggestions?”
“You could put your clothes back on and we could talk business,” I said.
“Oh, now you want to talk business?” she asked, arching her eyebrows. “No, no, no. That’s just not going to be possible right now. We have some issues to work out, you and I, and they aren’t going to work themselves out. Strip.”
“Peyton, this is ridiculous —”
“Strip.”
What was ridiculous was that I couldn’t resist her. I found myself out of my shirt and unbuttoning my jeans before I second guessed what I was doing, but then it was easier to just go ahead and comply. When a woman like Peyton Crow told you to get rid of your clothes and join her in your most natural form … well, you fucking did it.
She smiled at my erection, but it was an appraising smile, not a mocking one. It should’ve made me feel insecure, but it didn’t. She liked what she saw, and she managed to convey that in a single expression.
“Let’s make this as uncomplicated as possible, shall we?” she said, sitting gingerly on the edge of my bed and looking up at me. “You’re hung up about sex with me — who’s had it, who hasn’t, whether or not you’ll ever have it. I’m offering it to you right now, Emmett. Right here.”
“The catch?” I asked, barely able to speak. She had to see that I wanted it. I wanted it so bad that I wasn’t even ashamed I couldn’t hide it.
“No catch at all,” she said. “I want a good working relationship with you, and I’m sure you want the same thing with me. Let’s just get this out of the way. Dispel any myths or rumors. My very first Corbin — my, oh, my. I can’t wait to see what this ranching dynasty is all about.”
I laughed at that, and she laughed right back. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Come here and tell me how ridiculous I am.”
I approached her, and without warning, she took my length completely in her mouth in one smooth, fluid movement. I gagged on my own breath, then coughed an exhale.
“Okay?” she asked, withdrawing and looking up.
“Just took me by surprise.”
“I’m full of lots of surprises. After this, you’ll be surprised at how easy it is to focus.”
“I remember you saying that at the bar, offering me a hand job.”
“You’re a good listener.” She smiled. “And I told the truth. Let’s get down to business … so we can really get down to business.”
All of this because she wanted my undivided attention, devoid of suspicion or envy, when we talked about the horse rehab project. I’d take what I could get. There was no point resisting. I wanted this. With the gusto with which Peyton was sucking me off, covering every inch of me with her wet mouth, I almost believed she wanted this, too. Did she? She was a professional at this, something that I thought would be sort of a turnoff, but it wasn’t. Peyton knew exactly what she was doing, and I decided that the best approach I could take was to let her do whatever she wanted.
Whatever she wanted ended up being her closing her mouth, smirking at me, and leaning back before spreading her legs, revealing herself to me like a flower’s inner petals.
“What are you waiting for?” she asked, touching herself, trying to provoke me to action.
I refused to be rushed, no matter how badly I wanted her. “I’m just going to take the scenic route, I think,” I informed her before sinking to my knees and taking her hand in mine, licking the fingers that she’d dragged between her lips so sensuously. I liked the way she tasted, didn’t understand any man who refused to go down on a woman. It was more than just common courtesy — it was sexy as hell, and it tasted good, too. Anyone who thought otherwise, or demanded artificially flavored douches or lubes, was an idiot who didn’t understand what he was missing.
Peyton watched me, then arched her body in a surprised parabola as I lapped the same path her finger had taken, parting those sweet petals. I knew just what I was looking for, circling her clit before teasing it a little to see just how sensitive she was.
Answer: very.
She made the most delectable moans that grew more and more muddied as I journeyed upward, kissing and licking a path up her belly, past her navel, then detouring for a few minutes around each of her perfect breasts. She couldn’t seem to catch her breath as I nibbled first one nipple, then the other to hard little peaks, dusky and beautiful. Peyton was eager to kiss me when I finally reached her lips, which was a turn-on. I imagined she could easily taste her own body on my tongue, and she was into it.
“This was supposed to be about you, Emmett Corbin,” she said, breaking the kiss, staring at me, her dark eyes unreadable.
“Believe me. I’m enjoying myself very much.”
She clasped her legs around my waist and squeezed, pushing my hand down between her legs, back to her clit.
“I want you inside of me,” she whispered. “Now.”
I played with her as I complied with her wishes, inching forward as she licked her lips, squeezing her clit gently as I sheathed myself in her wetness. We breathed in tandem for several breaths until we got out of sync again, but it was enough to start moving. Her pull was my push — it was the strangest thing. I’d been with someone before who just laid beneath me, motionless, staring up at me with round eyes as I pumped, but Peyton was an active participant, even if this was simple missionary. I was sure she did all kinds of positions, whichever twisted shapes spoke to the depraved minds of her clients or suited the convenience of the situation. But this one was simple, allowing us to focus on what was true — how good we were making each other feel.
“Harder,” Peyton demanded, and I was only too happy to obey.
I stroked her face as I thrust, upping the rhythm and intensity, and she snaked her tongue out and licked one of my fingers, trapping it in between her lips before popping it completely in her mouth. It was one of the most erotic things I’d ever experienced — the simple act of someone else sucking on my finger, and it made me shudder with desire.
“Better stop that,” I warned. “I’m afraid I’ll come.”
“Feels good, doesn’t it?” she asked around my finger. “Coming’s the whole point. You can come when — and where — you like.”
“I want you to come first.”
And I was out of her pussy, the air cool on my dick, covered in her juices, and eating her out again, savoring the way our flavors mingled, the melody of her jumbled shouts, then, at long last, the final bittersweetness as she grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled urgently, screaming her release. I hardly let her recover before I was inside of her again, harder than before, my thrusts more urgent.
“Are you going to ride this wave?” I asked her as she took my finger in her mouth again.
“Fuck, yes,” she managed to say, and then squeezed her inner muscles so hard around my cock as she sucked my finger that I thought I went blind for a second, making ung
odly and unmanly sounds as I came within the span of a dozen additional thrusts, floating away and apart from my body, which collapsed bonelessly on Peyton as she moaned out the last sweet tendrils of her orgasm.
I was gone for what felt like a long time.
If anyone — Avery, for example — had been standing outside of the trailer for any portion of that, we were screwed. That was my first cognizant thought as I slowly settled back down into my body, becoming aware of my surroundings and reality again. It had been a really long time, and even with that, my last tryst paled in comparison to this one. This one had been magnificent.
“Are you ready to talk about the project, now?” Peyton asked, then screwed up her face and laughed. “Don’t take that the wrong way. I really, really enjoyed myself. Truly.”
“Yeah, right. I bet you tell all the guys that,” I said.
She laughed harder. “I … do. You’re right. But this time I mean it.”
“Uh-huh. Bet that’s a line, too.”
Cracking up, she smacked me with a pillow, and I had to start laughing, too, as I tried to protect myself with another pillow. It was funny because it was surreal, and I was delighted to discover that Peyton’s plan had worked. I felt much less awkward around her now that we’d shown our most vulnerable sides to each other. All it had taken was a little sex.
“Believe me or don’t, I don’t care,” Peyton announced, breathless and grinning from our impromptu pillow fight. “But it was damn good sex. It’s been a little bit too long since I’ve had sex like that. Thank you, Emmett. What a delightful surprise.”
“A surprise?” I laughed even harder. “That’s insulting, Peyton. You met me the first time and you thought I wouldn’t be any good at sex? That’s pretty damn depressing.”
“Oh my God,” she gasped, howling with laughter that she tried to suppress behind her hands, failing miserably. “I didn’t mean it like that! I really didn’t! You were just … I thought you were so uptight. I didn’t think things would be like this with you. I had fun making you uncomfortable in the bar. It was the most fun I’d had all night — maybe all week.”
“I’m so glad I could be a source of entertainment for you,” I said grumpily, but I was only joking.
“I’m glad, too,” she said. “And I’m glad we did this. I have to say, and I hope it’s not a mistake to do so, but I wouldn’t mind doing that again with you.”
“Again?” I thought about my cock. Could it perform again, so close to the last one? I could do it, given a little motivation. And I had all the eye candy right here, stretched out beside me. “Right now? I’m game.”
“Not right now,” she said, slipping into giggles again. “I mean in general. Friendly sex. No strings attached.”
“Except the business,” I said. “That’s a pretty thick string.”
“Business and pleasure would be conducted completely separately,” she said. “Could you do that? Would that be a possibility?”
Agree to something that would secure more sex with Peyton in the future? In a heartbeat.
“I think we can work something out,” I said, impressing myself with my own coolness. “If you can, of course.”
“I do,” she said, smiling. “Now, we’d better get our clothes back on, or we’re not going to be able to talk about the project very professionally.”
It was surprising — we spoke for hours about our goals for what we wanted to do. It was enormously productive, both of us taking notes at certain points, building on each other’s ideas for what we wanted.
“Shit, is that the time?” I asked at one point, dismayed as Peyton typed something on her phone she said she wanted to remember later.
“God, it is, isn’t it?” She paled. “Have we really been together that long? I swear that it only seemed like an hour or so.”
But it had been five — five whole hours alone with Peyton in my trailer — and it had flown by. I hadn’t done a lick of work on the ranch for five whole hours. Part of me liked that. I worked so hard all the time. Wasn’t I entitled to a little time off now and then? But I had to get to whatever I was assigned to do. I’d been assigned for a reason — because a body was needed in a specific place. I couldn’t shirk that responsibility for very long and feel good about myself.
“We’re going to have to pick this up another time,” I said. “As soon as possible, preferably.”
“Definitely,” she said. “This is the beginning of something really beautiful, Emmett. I can feel it.”
I could feel it, too, though perhaps not in the same way she meant. I was thrilled, positively thrilled, at our ideas, the way we’d been able to bounce them off of each other, finishing each other’s sentences like excitable twins, at one point. But another part of me looked forward to the pleasure aspect of the relationship Peyton had promised. Was that twisted? Was I wrong to wish we could have a quickie before she left?
“I’ll talk to you soon,” she said, then kissed me quickly on the cheek before dashing to her car and motoring away. She had somewhere she needed to be just as badly as I did, and I had to wonder where it was. I didn’t like that feeling, but I had to remember she wasn’t mine. She never would be. No strings attached. I just needed my heart to listen to the words my ears had heard.
I checked my appearance in the mirror and then the display of my phone to confirm the time before slipping it in my pocket. There was a text from Tucker.
“If you value your ass, you’ll get to the barn from wherever you are ASAP,” it read. “Chance is pissed.”
Pissed because I’d been missing. Fucking great. It made me dread being here even more, if possible. If I’d had my way, I would’ve spent all day with Peyton, going wherever it was she was going just so we could keep talking. Instead, I’d be spending the rest of the day — and probably a good deal of the night — here on the ranch.
Chance had a thunderous look on his face as I approached the barn, and I did a quick search in my head, as I’d been doing since I was a boy, to see what it was I might’ve done to piss him off. I could name quite a few things at the moment. I just wasn’t sure what he knew about, and I wasn’t about to give myself up. Had Avery told him who he’d run into outside of my trailer? I didn’t think my younger brother had the chance to. At least, I hoped he didn’t.
“Where the hell have you been?” he demanded, his voice even but menacing, as I got within range of him not having to shout. I glanced around the barn, realizing that Tucker and a few of the Summers ranch hands were there, going over some papers. That was the only reason Chance wasn’t reaming my ass right now — we had an audience. I felt a rush of gratitude for the serendipity of having the bigger ranch. When it was just the five of us Corbins, before Paisley and her half of the ranch entered the scene, we normally wouldn’t see each other until nightfall, when our shifts more or less officially ended. Chance would’ve been free to yell at me all he liked, then. It was only because of the bigger ranch — and the larger number of people present to work it — that he was restraining himself. Thank God. He could really blow a gasket when he wanted to — and sometimes when he didn’t particularly want to. I chalked it up to the stress of leadership. He’d always been in charge of things, as the oldest of us, especially after our parents’ deaths. But Paisley had named him, in the merger of the two of our family ranches, CEO of the Corbin side of things, making all the responsibilities he’d already undertaken official.
I wondered if it was taking a toll on him.
“I’ve been around,” I offered.
“Around doing what?” He was so pissed. He cut his eyes toward Tucker and the other ranch hands, and I knew he was wishing them away so he could really light into me, so I wished them to stay even harder.
“Working, the same as you.” That was a flat-out lie, even if it had started out as something I viewed as work. I was still struggling through how to prove to my brothers that the horse venture would gain quick traction, especially with Peyton’s prowess on the subject, but I hadn’t necess
arily been working on the ranch.
“You and I both know that’s bullshit, Emmett,” Chance said darkly. “You never were a good liar.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
He exhaled harshly — almost a laugh. “I want you to tell me the truth. What were you doing?”
“What does it matter? You don’t think I was working, even though that’s what I told you I was doing.”
“You’re scheduled to be out with the herd on the river,” he said. “You know that area’s one of our most problematic.”
“Only at night.”
“You were scheduled.” Chance was vehement, and I knew I had to tread carefully. He was stressed out about the ranch, about the recent cattle thefts, about something else happening to try and take our family’s ranch away, and we both knew that the ranch needed every available hand to work. For the first time, I felt guilty about all of my sneaking around. I hadn’t before. The horse operation was my dream, and I knew I was the only one who could make that happen, prove to my family and the rest of the ranch that this would help us. But what if all the attention I was paying it came at the cost of the existing ranch?
“I’m here now,” I said. “Even if I’ve been here the whole time. If you want to waste more time being mad at me, you can follow me on a horse out to the pasture.”
I made a move to walk around him toward the stable, my face tight with the knowledge that my horse still being in there was what had tipped Chance off that I wasn’t where I was supposed to be in the first place, but he stopped me.
“You’re good at what you do here, Emmett,” he said. “We need you. We need everyone to be pulling their fair share of work. It’s the only way this whole thing works.”
“I am pulling my fair share,” I said. “Most of the time, I’m doing a lot more than what’s expected of me. And if you’d just listen to me for once, this ranch would be even more secure in its business by diversifying.”
“You’re right,” Chance said, releasing my arm. “I don’t have time for this. The ranch needs you to get your head out of your ass. If you were off somewhere daydreaming about your goddamn horses instead of working, then you need to rethink your priorities. We can’t afford any deadweight around here. You know that as well as I do.”
